If you prick us, do we not bleed?

I had the opportunity for a long face-to-face discussion with Dean Letfus yesterday, as earlier forecast.

For those of you who haven’t met him, let me say first off I find Dean an intelligent, personable chap, with good communication skills and a sense of humour. (I’ve never subscribed to the ‘Say no good thing about your political opponents’ philosophy held by many politicians.) Nah, I’ve said it before: Dean can be good company.

EMPATHY makes the world go around (image: princetonprofs.blogspot.com - click)

We discussed a wide range of topics, some of which we disagreed about including, naturally, the fact that I have referred to some of his marketing statements and activities here on thePaepae.com from time to time … and I also comment on various of his partners and business alliances past and present (i.e. his track record) … and sometimes my comments can seem pretty negative.

I have, apparently (and understandably) cut or bruised Dean’s feelings at times by expressing my views as I have done and also with some juxtapositions. (I don’t want to overstate the ‘injury’. He seems OK.)

Reflecting on our conversation, which involved some to and fro over several hours but could never be described by an observer as ‘confrontational’, (Jeez, I’ve had Kieran Trass shouting at me in a café … a little awkward!) I want to say this, using my word of 2011 again: It’s good to empathise with others. We are all human, we all have emotional responses to the events that occur in our lives, and to our interactions with one another.

Shakespeare expressed it so wonderfully in The Merchant of Venice (Act 3, Scene I):

SHYLOCK
… He hath disgraced me, and
hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses,
mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my
bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine
enemies; and what’s his reason? I am a Jew. Hath
not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs,
dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with
the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject
to the same diseases, healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as
a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?
if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison
us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not
revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will
resemble you in that…

It’s that bit about bleeding, that speaks to me.

Dean and his spruiker mates Steve Goodey and Shaun Stenninget al are human beings with feelings. Of course they are. Like all of us, they have emotional responses to the frustrations and stresses life throws at them. Like each of us, those responses themselves can aid or hinder their ability to ‘deal with’ those events. (This is ’emotional intelligence’, to use the term Daniel Goleman popularised.)

Now, just like you, just like me, some of their wounds are self-inflicted. For instance, some of their choices in business partners or business practices have been, it turns out, … well, less than ideal — OK, they’ve been appallingly BAD choices, some of them, in hindsight. These things have been like time bombs waiting to explode … dodgy devices skating close to and over the moral edge in some cases. I personally have had reason to doubt their truthfulness at times. (That’s only my honest opinion).

Consequences

Those bad choices have consequences. Loss of reputation is one of the consequences (e.g. Geekversity), public criticism (like, um, from me) is one of the consequences. As I explained to Dean, I think of that as ‘feedback from the Universe’. (I’m sorry to be going slow on this, it seemed useful/necessary to spell it out during our session.) It’s not a case of me, Peter, being ‘sanctimonious’, ‘nasty’ or ‘malicious’, nor deliberately misrepresenting facts nor ‘bashing competitors’ in ‘the industry’. Honestly. See it as feedback.

Dean filled me in on some of the background to his involvement and what’s been going on in the ‘internet marketing’ circus in Asia — the verdant meadows he and the Stenning performing troupe have gambolled through over the last year or so. Based on what he told me, it seems there are considerable economic and other, more personal strains coming to bear on people involved. Some of those stresses — most — are tensions with which I can fully sympathise, of course. I’m not heartless.

As always in our lives (and love lives), some of these pressures are of our own making — and, in the case of this gaggle of ‘internet marketing experts’ — some result from actions or choices that other people (bad people? Yes, in some cases IMO) have taken — or refused to take … despite their commitments, promises, even legal contracts. Untrustworthy people can really do you over in business.

It all sounded pretty dog-eat-dog to me. I’m sorry I can’t be more specific. The detail doesn’t matter for the point I want to make which is this: It’s a messy, messy situation, and it’s not a good ‘place’ for anyone to be in … however one arrived there.

I came away from my discussion with Dean realising more fully that some of the people who ‘cop it’ from me (‘Mr High and Mighty’ as a sock-puppet once described me) feel hurt, aggrieved, and misjudged. At times they feel facts are ‘twisted’ and unjustifiable links made to make them look bad. They just can’t work out why the hell I DO what I do here at thePaepae.com.

I’ll leave my explanation of that for another time. For now, please just take it at face value. For my part, thePaepae.com IS what it looks like: a personal weblog with sometimes pointed and idiosyncratic commentary, following broad themes of interest to me. That’s it. It’s not part of a business model or a strategy to ‘get ahead’ by pulling others down. And I genuinely do try to be fair. Maybe I fail sometimes, but I try.

As I’ve mentioned before here and elsewhere, I would hate it if some of the things I’ve said and written about certain other people were said about ME — that’s why I don’t do what they do! (And, as noted, I don’t see myself as operating in their ‘industry’. Gawd no.)

How it looks to me

For now, my point is: Yes, sure, there are sociopaths in the world, people whose moral compass is completely warped and twisted. Those people exist … just like evil exists, as Jon Stewart said so eloquently — but I’m NOT saying I put Dean Letfus and the Stenning gang into that category. I DON’T say that about them. (In fact, I try to defend them from unfair accusations of that and of being ‘criminals’.)

These roosters are on the learning curve, having made some mistakes and poor business decisions, including hyperbolically over-promising things that it turned out they couldn’t deliver — or, for all sorts of reasons, didn’t deliver to the hyped-up expectation. There have also been some broken promises. They’d probably admit that themselves.

But do I think they’re blameless? No. They’re not totally innocent, in my view.

There’s a culture of cynical exaggeration in ‘internet marketing guru’ circles — ‘Copy the best — look how crooked they are!’. Hyperbolic style and NLP-sales techniques over substance. Perhaps they got infected by it? That, and the ‘rules’ keep changing, and some of their business alliances turned out to be a big disappointment, too. Yeah, you get that. BTDT.*

It’s the next steps — the ‘putting right’, if that’s possible (not a certainty by any means) — that will be worth watching and, ultimately, character revealing, in my opinion.

16 Comments »

I was chilling at a friends bach a few weeks ago and dipped into Without conscience by Robert D Hare which deals with the topic of psychopaths/sociopaths and they are far from warped and twisted (well, some might be).

He explains that they are just lacking in empathy and it has to be learnt. It has a fascinating chapter looking at body language and comparing a psycopath faking empathy with someone speaking a second language – its learnt and not natural and stands out as such.

If Shaun has exercised simple, careful thoughts before he embark on obsessive promotion of twalk (and others), he would not have bear such mass criticism from all over Asia. Twalk – no one knows whether it works in real-life or is it just a decoy..If it really works, Shaun should have spent time in ensuring S-O-M-E success in each country before he bounce all over the region promoting it.

As for SNIPR – he should not spring such unhappy surprises by suddenly charging each “Generate Insight” as a credit deduction..this is simply a dirty tactic to squeeze more money from present customers.
Phuket events – they should never spring unhappy surprises to Shaun’s advantage such as that Phuket 2 USD1,200 added “underground bonus” training.
And oh for the poor licencees – he should have exercised careful planning on trainings for them before he even offered it…he failed to deliver on 1) training on how to sell and 2) ADVANCED TRAINING on twalk for them 3) the promised 5 twalk ac x USD15 per ac per day x 30 days and manipulate the contract ambigious terms to his advantage…this is simply UNFORGIVABLE. And he gave them very little time to agree to the amount so that they did not have time to find ways to deal with him.

And should we forgive him? He has given Internet Marketing a very bad name..and is going down in history as part of the scamming gurus and not a genuine one.

This is all due to his own making and if we were to empathise with him , it will only encourage him to make a comeback of sorts. Now he is very quiet and only Matt is putting himself on the public front…beware…once things have settled down and people are quiet about this…he WILL make a comeback somewhere, somehow..

We just got to do our part of genuine people and alert others who will be falling into his trap..

I hope that you can get to meet Shaun Stenning face to face too.
He has a LOT of explaining to do on why he did what he did, etc…and if he will EVER fulfill his promises to refund the clients… his conditions for refund are really suspicious…how can he expect ALL comments to be taken off the Internet at all?
He may use the conditions to blame everyone (but himself) for breaking the rules and conditions for refunds, so that he can stall the process until everyone else give up..it should make a very interesting conversation starter….

Birds of a feather, JT, yes. No question about that in my mind. But human beings are much more complex than that.

I don’t know what the ‘glue’ in the relationship between these guys is (or any other spruikers) — but I think the initial attraction was a mutual respect for each others’ sales skills, most likely.

There’s something seductive about the concept “Hey, we could probably make a lot of money together.”

Then friendship kicks in — one of the best, most noble of human traits. And most complex.

The Stennings have youth and inexperience as ‘excuses’ for their screw-ups — but these are are not total excuses by any means, and they quickly lose their charm when people feel financially victimised. Judging by some of the comments here on thePaepae.com, they’ve worn out their welcome. At some point one has to STOP MAKING PROMISES YOU CANNOT KEEP.

If one doesn’t, there’s a prison cell with your name on the door waiting. (Or worse retribution, depending on the culture of the people whom your actions make feel ‘ripped off’.)

Dean Letfus, it seems to me, is a recidivist bad-choice-maker as far as business alliances. That’s just my opinion. It troubles me about him. But people do make bad choices under pressure sometimes (myself included!) I personally see us ALL as learning and calibrating … until we die.

In my own case I’ve learned bitter lessons about the need to be super-careful with business alliances. (This is NOT to say I am a saint who makes no mistakes and am somehow extra super worthy and my farts never smell blah blah…)

Let me say it raised not a jot of sympathy recently when I heard that certain spruikers’ past association with Richmastery/Phil Jones had caused some hardship for them. Just desserts. That’s what I mean by self-inflicted wounds and consequences.

Various people held their noses, got into bed with the toxic and deceitful Richmastery spruikers, lay back and thought of England — all for the prospect of making money. The various acolytes, sharks and wolves-in-sheeps-clothing who emerged from the debris of that business are, some of them, still playing the same game the same deceitful way. D for Dodgy, in my opinion.

Re ‘reaching out’: I suggested Dean and I meet face to face last year when it became clear he was feeling severely misunderstood and judged — and defensively spreading ‘the word’ that I was telling ‘lies’ about him — which is bullshit, in my opinion.

I don’t see myself as a bitter or vindictive person, despite what some wounded souls may say through their tears or rage. Snarky at times, sure. I’ll cop to that. It was a worthwhile meeting with Dean this week from my point of view, and I’m open to repeating it. I think critics should have the guts to face their targets.

Peter
Shaun managed to stage a comeback into the Internet Marketing scene in Asia based on his abuse of our empathy, right after the Geekversity failure. No matter what happened or is going to happen, he no longer deserves our respect nor trust anymore.
Yes..he is charming as a person, but don’t ALL scammers have charm as well? I am sure we will not miss him as much he does our money.
There are true, local IM gurus who are more honest than him..And to trust Dean Leftus is taking a risk, because he is also part of Shaun Stenning’s circle of associates…I am sure we rather keep a safe distance from him (and Vince Tan too) than risking our money in their ventures…Never let these people get to know your weakness which is empathy cause they will surely twist and [snip] their ways into your pockets..

@beware: thanks for sharing your point of view, which to me demonstrates the proverb ‘Once bitten, twice shy’.
In your case (and others) it’s more like: ‘Once or twice bitten … now angry and distrustful’!!

I gather from comments here on thePaepae.com and from other correspondence that quite a number of people now regard the salesmen involved in this scheme as cynical and emotionally manipulative — and, as you say, totally unworthy of people’s trust.

I haven’t cemented that impression of them myself, although as you may have gathered, I am pretty critical of aspects of their ‘operation’ which seem to me to be quite cold-blooded and misleading.

But certainly, even before talking with Dean Letfus earlier this week, it seemed to me that the chickens are coming home to roost. As I said in my original post:

It’s the next steps — the ‘putting right’, if that’s possible (not a certainty by any means) — that will be worth watching and, ultimately, character revealing…

Many Master teach peopel how to forgive someone but themself still never give up to hurting people or they think take poor guys money is good thing for them so they don’t feel guilt.

I hope they could stop to hurting people from now on but still never stop so how to forgive .

Cheating and hurting people are their hobby and game they beg for poor guys like me to forgive and start talk about their say story let us to sympathize them but just stil take our money again and again to enjoy their life and our money never back to us.

Till the end that we just know they are good at on make fake story so do not easy believe in what they say to you .

So we should thinking about it ,if we keep silence only get more victims.

last ,i want to thanks for Peter ,Your blog has been reduced many victims so you are great one for us.

I am another victim of Shaun’s programme like most you guys mentioned all, in particular for Phuket 2 & 3 programmes.

In order to assist you all in drafting your notice refund before 24 Feb, quickly email me at wrtng_stuff@yahoo.com.sg. I will guide you a draft to send to Shaun. Remember, his deadline is 24 Feb 2011.

I have plans and ways to deal with him, but firstly you all must meet his deadline at 24 Feb 2011 first. I have relevant experiences with the local authority in Singapore on consumer dispute, cannot share much here. Please do email me if you want to fight for your refund.

DO NOT be too concerned about the 20 Jan blog on refund is advertised at Twalk2Support Blog, Shaun owns the Twalk & Snipr programmes. He just cannot ignore it either one of them if the complaint is genuine. Email me, will show you how to write for your refund.